Randolph High School football player Brenan Corcoran, left, comforts a grieving friend during a visit to the makeshift memorial at the Ironia Road site where their friends Jack Timmerman and Calvin Verduga were killed in a single-car crash on Saturday. -- Photo by P.C. Robinson

Thomas Richards of Randolph struggles with his grief while visiting of the site of an accident that claimed the life of Randolph High School friends Jack Timmerman and Calvin Verduga on Saturday. -- Photo by P.C. Robinson

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Randolph football players killed in crash recalled as popular, funny

Randolph High School football player Brenan Corcoran, left, comforts a grieving friend during a visit to the makeshift memorial at the Ironia Road site where their friends Jack Timmerman and Calvin Verduga were killed in a single-car crash on Saturday. -- Photo by P.C. Robinson

Thomas Richards of Randolph struggles with his grief while visiting of the site of an accident that claimed the life of Randolph High School friends Jack Timmerman and Calvin Verduga on Saturday. -- Photo by P.C. Robinson

RANDOLPH TWP. -- Two popular Randolph High School football players who died in a single-car crash on Ironia Road Saturday were on Sunday remembered as being long-time friends who were inseparable and popular.

Jack Timmerman and Calvin Verduga were among four juveniles in a vehicle that ran off the road into the woods near 45 Ironia Road.

The vehicle's two occupants, the 17-year-old driver and 15-year-old front seat passenger, also Randolph High School students, had survived, although the driver was said to still be in the hospital in intensive, according to victims' friends.

On Sunday afternoon, scores of friends, many who played football with Messrs. Timmerman and Verduga, rising seniors at Randolph High School, huddled before a makeshift memorial erected at the site that contained several bouquets of flowers and a football t-shirt and makeshift cross containing letters to the departed.

Dressed in flip-flops, t-shirts and shorts -- summer weather wear usually reserved for good times -- many wept openly as they hugged friends, giving consolation -- and seeking it.

Friends said the two were very popular with their peers.

"They were great kids, definitely. They were very well-liked," remembered Igor Gonzalez. "They were good students too."

"They were the happiest people," recalled Jason Cohen.

Brenan Corcoran remembered them as "two of the funniest people I ever met in my life. They had this way of talking to each other."

He called the deaths "a hard pill to swallow.They didn't even live, didn't even graduate high school, and now this."

Mustang

According to a release issued by the Morris County Prosecutor's Office, the accident occurred at about 1:35 p.m. on Saturday.

Neighbors in the vicinity of the crash, who asked not to identified, said they heard screeching brakes at that time, followed by the crash.

One neighbor who reached the scene said he found the Mustang convertible, top down, laying on its side up against a tree about five yards from the road. The driver and front passenger, he said, had walked out of the wreck and were dazed and shocked.

Messrs. Timmerman and Verduga, he said, were sitting in the backseat of the vehicle when it ran off the road.

The two other juveniles in the car were also Randolph High School students, and their conditions have not been confirmed by law enforcement officials. Their identities also remain unknown.

The incident is still under investigation.

Counseling

To help support grieving friends, counseling and support services were being offered to the high school community Sunday and Monday.

On Sunday morning, Randolph Superintendent of Schools Daniel Browne issued a statement in which he said the "entire school community is in mourning and our thoughts are most certainly with the families and friends of the two students, beloved by so many."

According to Browne, counselors were available beginning Sunday afternoon "for any student or staff member in need of assistance...

"You can be assured that our school community will do everything we can to help our students deal with this tragic loss. We will do our best to provide additional updates as necessary during this difficult time."

Mental health professionals were also to be available from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. on Monday, and again from 1 to 3 p.m., he said.

"Staff members are working with the Morris County Coalition for Traumatic Loss. We will continue to provide updates as best we can."

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